07/12/18: FOX Sports debuted its lineup for the MLB All-Star Game

Good morning. It’s Thursday July 12, 2018 and this is your first early morning Sports briefing.

Tuesday sees FOX Sports step up to the plate for the 89th Major League Baseball All-Star Game presented by Mastercard out of DC with pregame coverage beginning at 7p on FS1 and continuing on the FOX broadcast network at 7:30p. Microphone duties see John Smoltz join play-by-play announcer Joe Buck with MLB Insider Ken Rosenthal and broadcaster Tom Verducci rounding out the broadcast crew. “Big Papi,” David Ortiz makes his 2018 All-Star debut as a studio analyst alongside Frank Thomas, Alex Rodriguez and Kevin Burkhardt.

Coverage of the 2018 MLB All-Star Game at the company starts Monday at 6:30a on FS1 with First Things First live from the ballpark, hosted by Cris Carter, Nick Wright and Jenna Wolfe.

ON THE AIR

Less than a month before kickoff of the 2018-19 Premier League season, NBC Sports Group unveiled its television schedule for the first two months of the season, with live coverage of all matches beginning Aug. 10, at 2p on NBCSN with Premier League Live followed by Manchester United/Leicester City at 3p. The channel serves up a special, three-hour Premier League Live: Transfer Deadline Day show on Aug. 9 at 11a, surrounding the end of the summer transfer window, Rebecca Lowe hosts the program, joined by Robbie Earle, Kyle Martino, and Robbie Mustoe. In addition, The Men in Blazers Show makes its season premiere on Aug. 9, at 2p. The networks of NBCUniversal will present at least five games each week in the season’s first two months on NBC, NBCSN, and CNBC, with all games preceded and followed by Premier League Live pre- and post-match shows. In addition, matches will be telecast in Spanish each week by Telemundo and Universo, and will also be streamed on the Telemundo Deportes En Vivo app for mobile devices.

ESPN Events unveiled the matchups for five of its owned and operated early-season men’s college basketball tournaments. Beginning November 15 through Christmas weekend, each of the events will host at least three teams who participated in the NCAA Tournament or NIT. Three-day, multi-team events include the Charleston Classic, the inaugural Myrtle Beach Invitational, Wooden Legacy, AdvoCare Invitational and Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic. In addition to the multi-team tournaments, ESPN Events also manages four single-day, neutral-site events including the Armed Forces Classic, State Farm Champions Classic and Jimmy V Men’s and Women’s Classics presented by Corona.Action begins Nov. 15 at 11:30a with Ball State/Virginia Tech on ESPN2.

Meanwhile, ESPN gears up for college football season with multi-platform coverage of conference kickoff events and media days and the return of College Football Live, which returns on July 16 from the College Football Hall of Fame and SEC Kickoff at 6:30p on ESPN2. ESPN’s networks will bring fans to 11 media days, including ESPNU and ACC Network Extra programming at ACC Football Kickoff (July 18-19), SEC Network coverage at SEC Kickoff (July 15-19), ESPNU and Longhorn Network at Big 12 Media Days (July 16-17), and ESPNU at Pac-12 Media Day (July 25). ESPN3 streams live specials from the American (July 23-24), Conference USA (July 19), MAC (July 24), Sun Belt (July 23), Big South (July 24), Northeast (July 24), Southland (July 19) media days.

CBS Sports carries a three-part series showcasing the second-annual Tough Mudder X Presented by KILL CLIFF. The action debuts on Saturday at 1p with the semi-finals on July 21 and the championship on July 28. Encore presentations will air on CBS Sports Network.

SiriusXM offers coverage of The 147th Open with 48 total hours of live on-course play-by-play plus daily talk programming hosted Mark Calcavecchia and other major champions. Live championship play-by-play, featuring The R&A’s @TheOpen Radio broadcasts, will air across all four days of play, July 19-22, on SiriusXM’s “The Open Radio” channel (Sirius channel 208 and XM channel 92). Tournament broadcasts will begin on SiriusXM on Thursday and Friday at 2a and on Saturday and Sunday at 4a.

Millennial and Gen Z men are an elusive group for networks and marketers, but a valuable one. A report from Engagement Labs, “The Remarkable Influence of Millennial Men,” shows they’re 50% more likely than millennial women to be word-of-mouth influencers. During today’s webinar, “Connecting with the New Young Male Demo,” our experts will share how to align your marketing efforts with millennial male interests.

Pizza Hut and the NCAA ordered a multi-year agreement that keeps Pizza Hut as the Official Pizza of the NCAA through the 2020-2021 academic year. The deal hands Pizza Hut with the rights to activate around all 90 NCAA championships each year, from basketball and hockey, to bowling, fencing, baseball, beach volleyball, and beyond. “The excitement and entertainment of enjoying live sports with friends and family is a time-honored tradition, and Pizza Hut aligns naturally with these experiences,” said Zipporah Allen, Chief Marketing Officer, Pizza Hut, U.S. “Pizza and sports are a perfect match. From the Men’s Final Four and College World Series, to the NFL Draft and Super Bowl, we’re looking forward to feeding the passion and excitement of all sports fans at every level.”ESPN unlocked its roster of sponsors for The 2018 ESPYS Presented by Capital One with the show broadcast live on ABC on July 18, at 8p. Capital One returns as the presenting sponsor of the show with the Capital One Cup, awarded annually at The ESPYS to the best men’s and women’s Division I college athletic programs in the country. Once again, Capital One Cardholders will have access to an exclusive viewing area on the red carpet. Additionally, the new Capital One Cam will feature slow motion technology to showcase all the fashion from the red carpet. First-time associate sponsors include Bonobos for the Pat Tillman Award for Service, Century 21 Real Estate for the Best Breakthrough Athlete Award, eBay showcasing a curated collection of items with College GameDay and ABC Saturday Night Football college sports analyst and reporter, Maria Taylor, during the red carpet show, and Hotels.com featuring an appearance by Captain Obvious on the red carpet. Returning associate sponsors include Bristol-Myers Squibb for the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance, Cadillac for the Arthur Ashe Courage Award, Dove Men+Care highlighting the Sports Humanitarian of the Year nominees and recipient, Gatorade highlighting the Gatorade High School Athlete of the Year program and announcing the Gatorade Male and Female Athletes of the Year, Coors Light as the presenter of the official ESPYS Post Party, and Warner Bros. featuring a trailer for the upcoming science fiction action thriller film The Meg.

DIGITAL & STREAMING

France’s semifinal win in the World Cup semi-final handed FOX Sports saw a live match average minute audience of 657,000 across the company’s streaming platforms. That marks the top authenticated streaming event of any sport in FOX Sports history.

ESPN Films, in association with Jigsaw Productions, announced that all six episodes of its new docuseries Enhanced will premiere on Monday on ESPN+. The program takes viewers inside “the secret world of modern sports training, technology, recovery and more, and raises questions about the characters, power struggles, and breakthrough innovations that are driving the greatest performances on the planet.”

The International Mixed Martial Arts Association partnered with Sportradar for the launch of its new OTT platform, immaf.tv, showcasing elite, amateur MMA. The platform is set to house all international live streams and on-demand matches from IMMAF Championships moving forward, as well as IMMAF’s long-awaited historic matches library from 2014 to 2018. Historic matches videos will be free to view

SI TV will showcase The Wilder Project, its newest flagship program starring Sports Illustrated staff writer and Twitter guru, Charlotte Wilder. Each week she will be joined by a new co-host, who will dive into the news and bigger cultural themes in an irreverent way. The first episode is available now with special guest Desus Nice. The show will run weekly on SI TV, but we are offering the first episode free on SI.com.

The Tempest Awards celebrate the brands, teams, leagues, players and business leaders driving the competitive gaming industry, with categories that span production, marketing, talent & technology. Winners will be announced live on stage during the Esports Business Summit at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas Tuesday, October 2.

In the Know: What is the height of the grass on the courts at Wimbledon during the annual tournament? (Email chris-sports@cynopsis.com with your answer and be sure to include your name, company and city.)

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